Ghosts
by Shaded Frost
Summary: Luna remembers. Pairing: HL


Title: Ghosts

Description: Luna remembers.

Rating: _G_

_Disclaimer: There is no way I am on the level of the goddess, JKR, and in no way do Harry Potter/Luna Lovegood/Hogwarts/etc. belong to me. I wish )_

_A/N: Please Review._

* * *

There are ghosts in his eyes so pure, innocent, and so green. Every time I see myself looking into them I see the past, the memories, the ghosts. He is happy though, so happy. And that makes me happy, too, but the ghosts, they haunt me.

There are days when I forget. I get so very caught up in the now, the chores, my job, and the flat that it all slips past my mind and I just don't _think anymore. _But then I see his eyes, and it all comes flooding back. It courses through me like blood too thick, so thick my veins feel fat and ready to burst. Shame then burdens my heart, and it hangs low in my chest. He always reminds me.

There are five toes on each of his feet and five fingers on each of his hands. He's perfect and so, so normal. Which I find very, very odd. I am not normal and I don't believe I ever was.

_ Tragedy, when I was nine, fell over the air in my childhood home like a mask. It was plastic and surreal; it suffocated my father and I. My mother had died, at the hands of her own beloved experiments. The relationship between my father and I wasn't altered, but our entire existence seemed to have been. _

_ In school, I was never accepted. I had always known I was eccentric, but I had never known that it was wrong. My peers rejected and teased me. I never really took the time to notice, however, as I was more interested in life and the beautiful things it held for me. Looking back on my school days, there are very few instances in which I remember being insulted. Most of my memories are good and pleasant; a select few are deep, dark, and life-changing, however. _

_ They called me Loony, Loony Luna Lovegood. I always found it kind of catchy, and convinced myself that when they slurred such words that maybe I was some sort of superhero, and that none of my schoolmates really meant to be mean. Harry Potter was never rude to me, though. I never had to convince myself that what he was saying was kind or even truthful, because he was honest with his emotions, and yet never tested sharp words against me. In fact, we grew with each other, he against my shoulder, and I against his. I almost felt selfish when we'd spend days upon beautiful days beside the lake; all around us, the world was crashing. Hogwarts held no classes in what was supposed to be his seventh year and my sixth; and yet, he had gone to the castle and sent for me. Many times, we'd in silence. Otherwise, we would speak, of matters so much deeper than blood and lineage. We spoke, we really spoke. By that time, I had fallen for him. _

_ There are moments that I can feel his breath across my neck, hot and raw. He used to breathe so heavily. I always thought it was because he contained so much, so much, his body could barely function. He knew all that was life, death, and in-between. He seemed to know and feel and think everything all at once that I could barely stand it. I would stare into his eyes and see everything so cleanly, so concise. I could see how he processed and put to bed each thought; there must have been millions._

_ He never meant to fall for me, we both knew that. He loved Ginny, he had. And I was okay with that. His love for her, however, fell away with the onslaught of Dumbledore's death. Everything he used to be was gone, shell-shocked; he stunbled into manhood. Never before had I seen one person burden himself with so many troubles, so many tasks, so many demands. And yet, he did so, wordlessly. What we came to find was profound and raw…our bond reminded me of him. My 'loony' optimism combined with his realistic pessimism was a force that I still do not understand. Whatever we were, we were. And that, was the most beautiful thing. _

He is sleeping now, and yet my eyes remain open and trained upon his figure as if scared the ghosts will come and envelop and change him, take him from me. I keep my gaze so steady I rarely blink. I'm afraid if I miss a moment, if I'm not aware for just one moment to keep everything in check, it'll all revert to _those _times again. Those times that were nothing but pain and sorrow and black, obsidian blankets cast thick over our eyes and bound by our ignorance. My breath catches in my throat and I feel pain, deep within the depths of my heart, a whine from the past, clawing at the very fiber of my being. I exhale, and the pain fades. He stirs.

My thoughts pause, for I am afraid to wake him, as he does so very easily. Somehow I've convinced myself that the millions of thoughts circling in my brain suddenly become audible when the lights are all out, and they echo off the walls like a distant memory. I wonder if he knows, that as long as it would make it so he slept (because god knows he rarely does), I would do anything to maintain the silence, to ensure his sleep. And oddly enough, silence is the very thing that eats at me.

I roll over in the bed skillfully, silently. I feel the void next to me cling to my core and try to choke my heart. My hands follow the pattern of the mattress, slipping down into the ever so vacant dip that had once been warmed every night, the arms of the occupant tightly around my waist, his face buried in my hair. He used to love the smell.

_ He_, the child, _our _child, coos in his sleep and I wonder if he knows that his father is not here. I wonder if he knows that every time I peer into his deep, emerald green eyes, I see the ghost of Harry Potter staring right back at me.


End file.
